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The conversation surrounding winter formal was never one Lysistrata looked forward to, but this year was particularly irritating. For one thing, Clemensia hadn’t stopped talking about how unfair it was that Coriolanus had said yes to Livia before she even got a chance to ask him, and, for another, everyone kept suggesting that she should ask Pup.
But she didn’t want to ask Pup, not that he had done anything particularly wrong, she just simply didn’t like him in any romantic way whatsoever. And, to his credit, Pup probably didn’t like her either. In fact, she distinctly remembered him calling her “stuck up”. To her classmates in Salt Lake City, however, the fact that they weren’t dating by default was incomprehensible.
She just wanted to go with Clemensia like they always used to. Nobody had bothered to ask her to homecoming when it was guys-ask-girls anyway, why should she have to ask a boy when they couldn’t muster up the courage to do the same months prior?
But Clemensia was relentless– insistent that she would not allow Lysistrata to third wheel with her and her date she was absolutely sure she was going to have come February 12th. Despite the fact that school dances never quite lived up to her expectations– dancing to the clean version of whatever songs the Academy faculty had deemed appropriate all while consistently being reminded to “leave room for Jesus” wasn’t exactly her ideal night– she didn’t want to miss out completely. It was about the principle, the actual experience was decidedly secondary.
So, she spent the next week scoping out her classmates in an attempt to find someone to ask. And really, her standards were not that high, but the fact that she refused to date anybody who said something along the lines of, “you’re actually really smart” when she dared to share any score she had gotten on an exam, or insisted that her family was how her people “should act” as a whole eliminated a good two-thirds of her classmates.
She already had to prove her existence everywhere she went, she needed someone who accepted her for who she was. She was not going to be “one of the good ones”. Nor would she be a vessel for some white boy’s character development ever again. And that was final.
Luckily, as winter formal loomed ever closer, a perfect solution to her growing apprehension appeared in the form of Sejanus Plinth. Thanks to her gym teacher pairing her and Clemenisa with Sejanus and Coriolanus for doubles practice during their tennis unit, he became a relatively consistent presence in her life. Much, she might add, to her benefit.
Honestly, she had no idea how she had never noticed him before. He was hard to ignore in most class discussions, where he was forced to defend an entire continent and a half while the rest of their classmates engaged in casual conversations about the very livelihood of the people living there.
In the one conversation they had shared prior to this, she remembered pulling him to the side after class and asking why he continued to risk being outcasted by people who would never listen to him, regardless of how valid his points were. She remembered him looking at her, confusion and hurt written all over his face, and saying, “Well, I can’t just do nothing.”
He was right. And perhaps she was wrong, but she was also tired. She held onto the idea that, after graduation, she would leave this stifling place that seemed intent on making an example out of her. Then, and only then, she would be free.
Still, she made an effort to defend him after that. But even then, his presence was limited to class and class alone, and he slipped from her mind more often than she would care to admit.
Now however, he was incredibly hard to ignore. They had both played tennis for years, along with most of the Academy student body. But Sejanus was good. And not the kind of good that came as a result of years of expensive personal training sessions, but rather the kind that suggested a natural athletic timing she had rarely seen before. He looked like he was dancing.
And so she watched him. She watched as he put his hands on his hips. Watched as they sloped forward around his waist and he looked up at their coach through his curls that were just long enough the graze his eyelashes. She watched as he lifted his shirt to wipe the sweat that had begun to form on his brow. She watched, and watched, and watched, until she found she couldn’t take her eyes off of him.
For the first time in years, Lysistrata had a crush. And luckily for her, winter formal was just around the corner. Now, she just had to find the right time to ask.
This proved quite difficult considering Sejanus was somehow nowhere to be found whenever she had a moment of free time to look for him. She never saw him in the cafeteria during lunch, and he never stayed at his locker long enough for her to get a word in before speeding off to his next class during passing periods.
Finally, with just three days to spare, her moment appeared. After their last class let out, Lysistrata made a beeline for Clemensia’s locker– which just so happened to be right by Sejanus’s– and pretended to look for something on the top shelf as her best friend eyed her suspiciously. Usually, Sejanus would be long gone by now, but it seemed he was preoccupied with a phone call. As he talked to someone on the other line in hushed Spanish, she attempted to staunch the rapid fluttering of her heart.
She needed courage, and, for that, she needed Clemenisa to stop talking right now so she didn’t lose her nerve. She elbowed her in the side, causing her to yelp embarrassingly loudly. Just then, of course, Sejanus hung up the phone.
Steeling herself, she walked briskly over to him and wound her finger around one of the braids she had pulled out from the bun she wore at the top of her head. “Hi, Sejanus.”
Sejanus whipped his head around, eyes wide, before they settled on her and his face relaxed slightly. “Oh, hi Lysistrata.”
“You can call me Lyssie,” she said, hoping to put him slightly more at ease. He looked like a deer in headlights, two seconds away from bolting. This was not going how she wanted it to. “So, uh, I was wondering… are you going to winter formal this year?”
“Oh, I don’t– I don’t think I’ll be allowed.”
Lysistrata tried to keep her face neutral to mask the crippling embarrassment coursing through her. “Oh, okay. Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to go with me. But if you’re not allowed…”
Sejanus’s eyes somehow widened further, hurt muddling with the shock on his terribly frightened face. “Is this…” He looked back at Clemensia, who had cruelly recruited Persephone to watch her make a complete fool of herself. Realizing he had looked their way, both girls ducked their heads, laughing as they turned their attention back to each other. “Is this a joke?”
“What? No!” Lysistrata shot a harsh glare in her friend’s direction. “No, it’s not a joke. I just wanted… to go with you. You seem cool.”
“Why’d you get your friends to watch?” Sejanus asked warily.
“I didn’t. I promise. But you always leave school so fast, and I can’t ever find you at lunch.” She felt a blush creep up on her cheeks when she realized she had just admitted to basically stalking him for the past week, but for better or worse, she kept talking. “Clemensia’s locker is near yours and the dance is only three days away and I really didn’t want to miss you again and I’m so sorry. I never wanted them to be here. They’re really embarrassing and I know you probably don’t want to go with me–”
“Hey, hey. I believe you.” Sejanus said hurriedly. “I just– I didn’t think anyone would want to go with me.”
Lysistrata’s heart nearly broke when she heard the sincere disbelief in his tone. “I do. I mean, I did. I’m, um, sorry you’re not allowed.”
“I haven’t ever actually asked,” Sejanus burst out. “I never thought anybody would ask me, so I… never brought it up. To my parents, I mean. I could. If you still–”
Both of them, it seemed, were ready to implode out of sheer humiliation and could not meet each other's eyes. Still, she forced herself to speak again. “I still do. I would love to. And I promise I’ll be less awkward at the dance. I don’t usually act like this.”
Sejanus smiled, and managed to tear his eyes from his shoes. “I know you don’t.”
With that, they exchanged phone numbers, with the promise that Sejanus would let her know what his parents said about the dance later that night.
***
As it turned out, Sejanus was allowed to go to the dance, he just had to be home fifteen minutes after it ended. He mentioned something along the lines of his mother wanting him to get out of the house more, which, to her credit, he probably could benefit from.
So, after her mother had sufficiently scorched the back of her neck with a flat iron, and she had rotated through at least six different jewelry combinations before deciding on her first choice anyway, she found herself pacing back and forth in the living room, waiting for the clock to hit 6:00.
On the hour and not one minute later, she heard a car pull up in her driveway, crushing the snow that had recently fallen that night under its tires. A knock came at the door, and she rushed over before her father could get to it.
Sejanus stood out front, dressed in a cream-colored linen shirt that draped nicely over his broad, angular frame and deep brown pants that matched his tie.
He offered her a shy smile. “Hi Lysistr– Lyssie.”
“Hi!” Lysistrata grabbed his hand and pulled him into the foyer. Surprise flickered across his face before he rearranged his features to into a politely neutral mask.
“You look… really pretty,” he said, grabbing a light blue velvet box from the bench he’d set it on and holding it out to her. “Here, let me help you with this.”
He opened the box, exposing a beautiful corsage composed of delicate blue and white flowers that matched her dress perfectly. He lifted her wrist and gently slid it on, taking great care not to damage any of the petals as he did so. Lysistrata looked at the box that remained in his left hand, trying to decipher the logo.
After multiple failed attempts to read it, she finally gave into her curiosity. “Sejanus, where did you get this from?”
“The florist off of I-15. Why? Is something wrong?”
“No, no, nothing’s wrong. It’s just… isn’t that place really expensive?”
Sejanus ducked his head to hide his eyes. “Oh, it might be. I don’t know.”
She took his hand in her own and brought it closer to her. “I love it. But now you’ve upstaged me.” She walked over to the banister where the boutonniere she’d bought sat and cringed as the plastic squeaked horribly under her grasp. “I, uh, got yours from Albertsons.”
“It’s perfect,” he said, completely sincere as she reached upwards to pin it to her chest. His hand met hers, guiding the needle of the boutonniere through the other side of his shirt and pinning it down. Lysistrata’s heart fluttered at the contact.
After that, they began making their way through the gauntlet of photos they had to pose for before dinner. Lysistrata’s parents got pictures of her and Sejanus before they left for Clemensia’s house, where they were joined by her and Festus. There, the four of them were forced to stand in the snow until their hands went numb and Clemenia’s mother eventually gave up on getting the right lighting in the pitch black of winter.
Finally, they made their final stop at Livia’s house, much to Clemensia’s dismay. Lysistrata did feel some twinge of sympathy for her, but then again she was the one who decided to go with Festus, who couldn’t fathom going anywhere without another boy present.
She had tried to tell him Sejanus would be there, to which he responded that Sejanus didn’t count. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what that meant.
Livia and Coriolanus piled into Festus’s car and led the way to the restaurant they had made reservations at two days prior, Sejanus and Lysistrata following closely behind.
Dinner was decent, and made better by the fact that Sejanus paid for her entire meal despite all of the other boys at the table suggesting that a girls-ask-guys dance meant that they were completely absolved of any financial responsibility.
The dance, as always, just barely lived up to her mediocre expectations. After about an hour of bad music and even worse dancing, she pulled Sejanus aside. “Do you want to leave?”
Sejanus nodded almost immediately. “Please.”
They ran off towards his car, sneaking out of the back door to the school so as to not get caught by any faculty that would almost certainly call both of their parents within the hour if they dared to leave out of the front entrance.
After clicking her heels together to rid the snow from the bottoms, she shut the car door, leaving the two of them in comfortable silence to watch the flakes pile up on the car’s windshield as the defroster tried its best to thaw the ice that had frozen over it in the short time they were gone.
She looked toward Sejanus, a smile tugging at her lips that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard she tried to control it. “So, where to?”
“I don’t know,” Sejanus shrugged apologetically. “I’m not usually allowed out this late. Is anything even open?”
“It’s 8:30, dummy. Of course things are open.” She fell silent, considering her options. She wasn’t particularly hungry, and she figured Sejanus wasn’t either, but they needed to do something to ease the tension that was slowly making its way back into the air.
Slowly, an idea formed in her mind. “Have you ever been to Swig?”
“What’s that?”
“You’ve never been? Oh my God, it’s like the only good thing in Salt Lake City! We’re going.”
At her direction, Sejanus pulled into the drive through and looked up at the menu. “Where did you take me? Is this… all soda?”
“Yes. And it’s amazing. I can order for you.”
So, armed with two absurdly large Diet Cokes with vanilla, lime, and half and half added to each, she had Sejanus park in a secluded lot overlooking downtown for her big reveal. Strangely, his face was completely indecipherable after he took his first sip.
“What do you think?” she questioned.
“It’s, um, good? Yeah. It’s good.”
Lysistrata raised her eyebrows at him. “You don’t sound very believable.”
“Well, I don’t– I mean.” Sejanus paused in an attempt to collect his thoughts. “I don’t want to be disrespectful to… your religion, but it’s not really my thing.”
“What religion?”
Sejanus looked up at her helplessly. “Aren’t you Mormon? Or sorry– a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints. I can never get that right.”
Lysistrata burst out laughing, nearly losing her grip on her cup. “You thought I was Mormon?”
A small smile spread onto Sejanus’s face. “I just assumed since you live here that you would be.”
“No, no, I’m not Mormon. They have some weird stuff in their scriptures about black people. My family’s Methodist, but we only really go to church when my grandma comes to visit.”
“Oh, okay. But still, I’m sorry I don’t like it. It’s just new.” Sejanus winced at his perceived rudeness, and Lysistrata had to suppress the urge to laugh again. “But it’s not bad! It’s just not good to… me.”
“Sejanus, I can tell you’re lying.”
Finally, Sejanus laughed along with her. “Okay, it’s disgusting. Happy?”
Lysistrata nodded, smiling up at him. They stayed that way, neither of them willing to look away. At that moment, she realized she’d hardly even seen Sejanus smile. In school, he rarely had a reason to. He spent most of his time hiding away from people that never seemed to tire of the old insults that they threw at him.
Well, maybe she would just have to stick around to make sure he had something to smile about.
They pulled into her driveway just before 10:00. Before she could back down, she pressed a quick kiss to the side of his cheek and hopped out of the car. Sejanus waved her goodbye, waiting until her mother opened the door to begin his drive home. As he left, Lysistrata looked back, hoping to see the same smile from earlier painted across his face. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found. Instead, it was replaced by what she could only describe as dread.
***
She spent the next week immersed in an odd state of longing, waiting for Sejanus to make the next move. They had kept in contact, and as such she’d been thanked multiple times for something as simple as inviting him to a dance, but he hadn’t suggested they see each other again. Not yet, at least.
Thankfully, during fifth period that Friday, whatever spell Sejanus was under when he left her house after winter formal had broken, and he returned to his usual self. Fueled by the knowledge they would see each other after school, Lysistrata spent the rest of her day in an “annoyingly” good mood, according to Clemensia.
That afternoon, they went to the movie theater. If her life depended on it, she could not remember the actual movie they watched if anyone decided to interrogate her about her date later. She was far more focused on Sejanus’s arms, one of which was warped around her shoulder, pulling her closer. She had propped up the divider that separated the two of their chairs before the movie even started, allowing her to comfortably rest her head on his shoulder and attempt to determine if his heartbeat was as irregular as hers.
Once they left the theater, they found themselves in the same parking lot they were in the night of the dance. They had moved to the back seat of the car, her tucked securely under Sejanus’s arm. Suddenly, his hand fell to her chin and lifted her face towards his.
They were close enough now that she could count the freckles that dotted his nose and cheekbones. Heart pounding, she pressed her lips to his. Gently, at first, and then once it was clear to her that he was reciprocating, with more urgency.
There was something in his eyes she could not quite place as she pulled away. Some sort of desperation that had nothing to do with her nor the kiss they had just shared.
“You’re so pretty,” said Sejanus. It wasn’t a compliment, though it certainly presented as one on the surface. But as it fell out of his mouth, it sounded more like a plea than anything else.
He sat up straighter and removed his arm from around her shoulders. “You’re so pretty,” he repeated, as though he couldn’t believe it himself. His breathing quickened. “Why can’t I just–”
A sob ripped its way out of his throat before he could finish. Lysistrata immediately placed a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, attempting to regulate her own breathing as she did so. This was going so well. It was all going so well. Why did she have to ruin everything? Why couldn’t she act like everyone else her age, everyone who had done this before and didn’t have to question every little thing they did.
Sejanus turned his head in her direction, large amber eyes filled with tears. “There’s something wrong with me, Lyssie.”
“No,” she said firmly, because whatever this was, it certainly wasn’t Sejanus’s fault. “There’s nothing wrong with you. What do you mean?”
He took in a shaky breath and looked down at his hands. “I don’t… feel the way I’m supposed to feel. You’re so perfect. You’re so nice, and you’re so pretty, and I like spending time with you and I don’t understand why I can’t just like you.”
Sejanus’s eyes widened further as he realized what he’d just said, but he remained silent.
“You don’t like me?” said Lysistrata, fighting to keep her own tears from falling.
“No! I do like you. I just don’t–”
“You don’t like me like that,” she said, mirroring Sejanus’s stance and looking down at her palms that lay upright in her lap. “Who do you like?”
“I can’t tell you that,” he said, so softly that Lysistrata barely heard.
Her brown knit in frustration. “I think I deserve to know who you like if it isn’t me. I know we’re not technically dating but I do– did really like you. And I thought that you did too. I didn’t know you were talking to another girl.”
“I’m not talking to anyone else. I promise. I would never do that.” Sejanus wrung his hands together frantically, attempting to take in air through ragged breaths. “I don’t– I don’t think I like girls at all.”
All the anger she’d held evaporated instantly upon hearing his whispered confession. In its place, fear bloomed in her chest. Salt Lake City was never a safe place for either of them, but now, it was as if Sejanus had been given a death sentence.
“Do you like boys?” she asked quietly.
Sejanus gave her a barely perceptible nod of his head. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could. He sank into her touch eagerly, burying his head in the crook of her neck.
When his shaking subsided, he pulled back, looking at her in disbelief. “You’re not mad?”
“Of course I’m not mad.”
“You have all the right to be. I’m sorry I led you on. I just thought that if I dated you then I could finally be normal.”
“You are normal.”
Sejanus smiled sadly. “You’re the only person in this entire town who thinks that. Do you hear what other guys say about me? Festus said I didn’t even count as a boy.”
“You heard that?” asked Lysistrata, berating herself for not looking over her shoulder before she decided to confront Festus in the hall two weeks prior.
“I hear everything everyone says about me. And even if they say it when I’m not there it finds its way back somehow. I think you’re the only person that’s ever actually liked me.”
“That’s not true.”
Sejanus shook his head. “You and my ma, maybe. I am really sorry, Lysistrata. I really didn’t want to hurt you. I should have told you earlier. I knew. I’ve always known. It was just so nice to have someone to talk to. And I don’t feel anything when we kiss, but it’s nice to have someone there. I think that’s why I got confused when you kissed me the first time. I didn’t know how much I missed physical touch. Everyone in Salt Lake is so private. It’s not like that, back home. But here, it feels like I’m…”
“Starving?” she offered. “I know how you feel.”
“You do?” asked Sejanus, sounding impossibly hopeful.
“Of course. My family isn’t made for this place either. I’ve spent my entire life fantasizing about leaving because the people here are sterile.” She grabbed his hand and rubbed circles across the back of it with her thumb. “You know, we can still be friends, Sejanus. I don’t want you out of my life completely just because you hurt my feelings for, like, five minutes.”
“You want to be friends?” Sejanus asked in disbelief. “I thought you would hate me.”
Lysistrata scoffed in mock offense. “You’re probably one of the only good people I’ve met here. I’m not letting you go that easily.”
***
And so friends they remained. In the next few months, Lysistrata quickly enveloped herself into Sejanus’s life. As a result, she learned that his mother was an excellent cook, and that she was the kindest woman she had ever met. She learned that she had earned the title of Sejanus’s mother’s favorite friend after she’d gone over to his house for the first time. When she questioned him on who else his mother had met, he reluctantly told her that Coriolanus and him had been hanging out outside of school for years, but she was, under no circumstances, allowed to relay that information to anyone else. Coriolanus had a reputation to uphold after all.
She learned that Sejanus wanted to be a doctor, and that he planned on moving back to Denver after he graduated to study biology and eventually go to medical school there. She learned that his father was adamant that neither of these things would happen. She learned that Sejanus didn’t care about much of anything his father said.
She learned, one night, to what lengths Sejanus’s father was willing to go to to make him.
Usually, Sejanus’s father got home at 6:30, and by then Lysistrata was long gone, typically already eating dinner with her parents. That night however, his father had gotten home early. She hadn’t had enough time to slip out the back door without him noticing, so she hid in the closet at Sejanus’s direction.
Thanking his foresight repeatedly, she squeezed herself into a ball to further diminish her presence as Strabo burst into the room.
How Sejanus had predicted his father's mood simply by how he shut the front door upon entering the house, Lysistrata had no idea. But, as always, he was correct in assuming it would be a foul one.
With her ear pressed against the door, she used her limited knowledge of high school Spanish to try and decipher their conversation. She distinctly recognized the word “Strabo” falling out of Sejanus’s mouth, and wondered if Sejanus genuinely had the gall to call his father by his first name.
Without warning, a sharp strike echoed through the room, and she heard Sejanus yelp and stumble into something she could not determine the source of. After that, their conversation ceased, and she heard the door to his room slam shut moments later.
As soon as it was safe, she rushed out of the closet, and found Sejanus with his back pressed against a wall and knees tucked up to his chest– all the life that usually radiated out of him gone.
She sank down beside him, and attempted to interlock the fingers of Sejanus’s free hand with her own. Sejanus flinched and turned away, bringing both hands to rest near his ear.
Lysistrata strained to see what he was holding, and was greeted by a thin stream of blood trailing down from his right ear to his collarbone.
“You’re bleeding.”
Sejanus barely looked back at her. “I know.”
“Can I– Do you want me to help you? Do you want my parents to look at it? If your inner ear is bleeding that’s not a good sign. You should really get it looked at by a doctor–”
“It’s not my inner ear.” Sejanus pulled his hands away from his face. A small earring, which used to be golden but was now coated in red, lay in his palm. “He never liked these.”
Lysistrata’s face fell in horror. “Did he– Did he pull it out?”
“No, he slapped me and then pulled it out,” Sejanus spat, bitterness lacing his words. He brought his head to rest at his knees, shoulders shaking slightly. “I liked them, though. I really, really liked them.”
“I know you did,” whispered Lysistrata, resisting the urge to grab his hands again. “You can get them re-pierced when that heals.”
“No, I can’t. You can pierce through scar tissue.”
Sejanus brought his head out from his knees and let it fall backwards toward the wall. Lysistrata held up her hand as a cushion before it had the chance to connect with the drywall.
“Thanks,” said Sejanus, finally meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“It’s my fault. I don’t know why I always start fights with him.”
Suppressing the urge to scream that he was wrong, she spoke in a level, comforting tone. “That’s not true. What could you have said to warrant something like this?”
“He calls me moreno all the time, and it’s not a bad word necessarily. At least not to me. But I hate when he says it, cause he says it to hurt me. So I called him by his first name and said that since he wants me to be white so badly he better get used to me treating him like white kids treat their parents.”
Lysistrata choked out a laugh that she hoped passed as a cough.
A slight smile tugged at Sejanus’s lips. “Are you laughing at me?”
“No! I’m not. I didn’t mean to. You’re just… very brave.”
“Or stupid.”
“That too. But you still didn’t deserve that.” She gestured to the drying blood sloping down his neck. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah.” Sejanus sighed, closing his eyes. “I’ll be fine.”
Reluctantly, she left out of Sejanus’s window, thanking whoever was looking out for her that it had snowed a foot and a half the night before, giving her a soft place to land before she ran off into the street towards her house.
***
Lysistrata tried her best not to worry too much about Sejanus’s home life. She knew he was strong, and she knew that she couldn’t help nearly as much as she wanted to. For the next two years of their friendship, she attempted to calm the rising apprehension in her chest whenever she had to leave Sejanus to fend for himself against his father.
But, somehow, he’d made it this far. And he was going to make it out. Of that, she was certain. And his escape certianly wasn’t going to be aided by her incessant worrying.
Sometimes, however, she couldn’t help it. She knew the pit that formed in her stomach whenever Coriolanus was mentioned was probably unfair. After all, he hadn’t done anything wrong. Yet. There was always a perpetual possibility that made her uneasy.
As it turned out, her gut instinct was correct. It only took one phone call from a hysterical Sejanus to prove it as such. They had kissed, just once, Sejanus felt the need to add. Just once, Lyssie, he swore, I never meant for it to turn out like this.
They got caught, like she’d predicted, and Coriolanus had ran, like she predicted. And now, they both remained trapped in a terrible waiting game of his design.
The other shoe, funnily enough, dropped on the day Sejanus began to smile again. He and Coriolanus weren’t speaking anymore, which Lysistrata was eternally grateful for, and he’d begun to give up the idea that the other boy was going to tell anyone about what they had done. In fact, she distinctly remembered him saying, “It’s just as much his secret as it is mine. Why would he tell anyone?”
It was just as much his secret as it was her friend’s, but people like Coriolanus Snow did not see it that way. Which led her to her current predicament, dragging her feet along the halls of a fluorescent lit hospital wing at seven in the morning.
The last thing Sejanus had said to her as they left school that afternoon was, “See you tomorrow.” Well, she thought with some cruel sense of irony, I guess it is tomorrow.
When she finally was able to see him, she couldn’t help but cry out. He looked dead already, with his swollen, bloodshot eyes and translucent skin. He was asleep when she arrived, so she waited as the clock ticked further and further into the school day. There was first period unexcused. And second. And third.
Finally, as the clock struck 11, he woke up. When his eyes met hers, they immediately filled with tears. Hers did the same. She stumbled, bleary eyed, over to the bed and grasped his hand.
“Why?” was all she said. It was all she could say.
“I’m tired,” was all he could offer in return.
She remained in that uncomfortable chair, under those blinding fluorescent lights, until his mother showed up at three in the afternoon. She had missed the entire school day.
She was quite certain her parents would be incredibly displeased with her breaking her prefect attendance streak that she had sustained since sixth grade, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to care.
As she left the hospital, legs wobbly from disuse, she nearly stumbled right into Coriolanus Snow and the insidious bouquet of white roses he carried like a trophy out in front of him.
He bowed his head in greeting. “Lyssie.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry?”
“Don’t call me that.”
Coriolanus scoffed in disbelief. “Well, I’m sorry, I thought we’d known each other for long enough for me to–”
“You don’t know me. At all. You don’t know him either.” She gestured in the direction of Sejanus’s room, certain that was where Coriolanus was headed. “Just because you say the right thing and you’re where you should be all the time doesn’t mean people won’t figure out, Coriolanus.”
She stormed off without bothering to take in his reaction. He didn’t matter. None of them mattered anymore.
***
Sejanus left Utah soon after he was released from the hospital, finishing out the rest of the school year online. She didn’t hear much from him. But he was alive, at least, and true to his promise, he made it out.
He didn’t come back for graduation. They read his name aloud to an empty stage while her classmates snickered in the audience. After the ceremony, she walked up and grabbed it from the podium, driving by his fathers house and dumping it on the doorstep with an unceremonious toss.
Lysistrata tried her hand at the University of Utah. She had planned on going there with Clemensia since they were little, but it seemed neither of them could stand the state anymore. They both transferred out after their freshman year.
Clemenisa headed to California, quickly finding her place amongst the crowd at USC. Lysistrata wasn’t as lucky. She flitted in between schools for two semesters, earning just enough credits to transfer into nursing school.
She moved to Denver on a whim, after literally throwing a dart at a map and applying to whatever nursing school was closest to it.
She packed up her tiny dorm room and moved into her first apartment. Upon walking into a Walgreens for the first time, she remembered excitedly calling her brother and remarking that there were people here that looked like her. To which he replied, “I told you you needed to get out of Salt Lake.”
She couldn’t help her laugher as she walked through the multicolored isles. She probably looked insane, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t anybody’s example anymore. In fact, nobody knew her at all.
Her courses began on a scorching hot Monday in August. As she listened to her pharmacology professor give her long, droning speech about hard work that all of them had heard three times today in every other class, she barely registered the door opening.
“The next two years will be the most difficult, and the most rewarding, of your entire life thus far. Because of that, I implore you to take your courses seriously. And if you’re just here to find a girlfriend–” Her sharp brown eyes narrowed in on the only man in the class. A man, she realized– not the boy she knew– with curly brown hair and kind eyes and warm hands and a perfect smile. Sejanus. Her Sejanus.
She ducked her head as her professor continued on. “I assure you, you will not have time.”
Sejanus shrugged back at her. “I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”
It took all her self control not to call out to him from her seat in the front of the room, but she managed to compose herself until after class.
She rushed up to him in the hallway, tugging on the hem of his shirt sleeve to grab his attention. He looked down at her, and his eyes softened in recognition. “Lyssie.”
“Sejanus! I’m so glad you’re here.”
It was an innocent statement, one that, to anyone passing by would suggest nothing more than a friendly re-unitement. But to the both of them, it carried another, far more significant meaning.
“Yeah,” said Sejanus, smiling down at her with a warmth she hadn’t seen in years. “Me too.”